2012 Summer Olympics: David Boudia Reaches Semifinals In 10-Meter Platform Diving

It was nearly a disastrous afternoon for Purdue's David Boudia. After three dives David looked as if he was solidly into tomorrow's semifinals in the 10-meter platform diving. After getting the silver medal at last year's world championships and a bronze in the synchro event earlier in the Olympics finishing in the top 18 to reach tomorrow's semifinals looked to be easy.

David was eighth after three dives when I headed home from work, and was within a point of sixth place. David's fourth dive was disastrous with a score of just 44.55 after his first three scores were 81, 73.60, and 88.80. His fifth dive was an 81, and his sixth and final dive was a 70.20 as he grabbed the 18th and final spot in tomorrow's semifinals.

The good news is that the scores are wiped clean and he starts over in the semifinals at 10am London time (roughly 5am Eastern). The bad news is that they dive in reverse order of today's standings, so David will dive first in each of the six rounds. The top 12 after six dives go on to the Finals, which are at 8:30 p.m. London time (3:30pm Eastern). The finals consist of six more dives in reverse order of scoring from tomorrow's round.

So, David is still alive for a medal, but he faces an uphill climb. The Chinese, who won gold in synchro, have been dominant and are favored to go 1-2 again. The Germans and Mexicans were also very strong, as well as David's Synchro partner Nick McCrory.

UPDATE: David had a MUCH better semifinal round, finishing third with 531.15 points. He was a little more than ten points out of second place and 10 points ahead of fourth. Bo Qiu and Yue Lin, both of China, were the only two ahead of him.